ANDERSEN, H. C.

Fodreise fra Holmens Canal til Østpynten af Amager i Aarene 1828 og 1829. Andet Oplag. (Forøget af Forfatteren).

Kjøbenhavn, C. A. Reitzel, 1829.

Bound in a contemporary slightly worn half calf with gilt spine. Some wear to hinges and capitals. Previous owner's signature to top of title page. Some brownspotting. Last leaf restored to inner margin.

The rare second issue of Hans Christian Andersen's debut novel, "Journey on Foot", here in the extremely scarce original printed wrappers. Andersen himself considered this book his debut and refers to it as "my first publication". It came to play a tremendous role in the development of his writing and constitutes one of his most important works. It is the first piece of Andersen that yields any success and the first work for which he gained any recognition.

"It is a well-known fact that Hans Christian Andersen made his début as a writer three times during his youth. The first time he published a book was in 1822, when "Youthful Attempts" came out... He was 17 years old, penniless and in need for help, but the main part of the circulation ended up in the paper mill...
The second time he made his début was in 1829, when he published "Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager", a book which can hardly be classified as a travel book. To me it seems a subtle and humorous arabesque and a literary satire. This book was published in the year after he had left grammar-school and was qualifying for the entrance examination to academic studies at the university. It can rightly be regarded as a key, which enables us to understand the entire development of his later production...
It was Carl Bagger, his friend from the school days, who had instigated him to cultivate his inborn talent for satire, and during the same year he published "Journey on Foot" they met regularly together with a third mate in the "Serapionsclub" to which Andersen showed up with a piece of paper sticking out of his pocket. As a free writer it was the fantastic arabesque à la E. T. A. Hoffmann, which came into the centre of their poetic endeavour. What he had learned from Bernhard Severin Ingemann, his fatherly friend, talked about to Carl Bagger and read in Hoffmann, Jean Paul and Ludwig Tieck, he laid out in his book, which as a mixture of an autobiography in disguise and an allegorical satire contains all the basic motifs of his poetic world as a raw material." (Kofoed)

In "The Fairy Tale of My Life", Andersen writes: "Having passed my examinations, the multicoloured fantasies and inventions by which I had been haunted on my walking tours back from my coach, flew like a swarm of bees out in the world in my first publication: "Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager", a humours, weird book, a kind of fanciful arabesque, yet perfectly indicating my whole personality and my views at that time."

""Journey on Foot" is a grotesque and serious satire foreseeing the deluge of letters in a mass society, and this issue is in my opinion not only superior as a motive in Andersen's first book but also an overall theme in his entire production. A kind of grotesque humour is one of the characteristics of the arabesque, and if we take a look at the collected tales we may easily sort out a series of narratives typical of the same fluttering, self-ironical and even prophetic style." (Kofoed)

See: Kofoed, Niels: "The Arabesque and the Grotesque - Hans Christian Andersen Decomposing the World of Poetry" , In: Johan de Mylius, Aage Jørgensen and Viggo Hjørnager Pedersen (ed.): "Hans Christian Andersen. A Poet in Time. Papers from the Second International Hans Christian Andersen Conference 29 July to 2 August 1996." The Hans Christian Andersen Center, Odense University, Odense University Press. 576 pages, Odense, Denmark 1999.

A good copy with the often missing half title which is not mentioned by Birger Frank Nielsen.

BFN 27.

Order-nr.: 57489